Tag Archives: Justine Henin

So I’m in the greeting card section of Target on Saturday, looking for a birthday card for a friend, and I see, lined up three in a row, a trio of obnoxious, stupid, sexist cards designed for men.

You know the type: Big-breasted woman, maybe blonde, leaning over looking all come-hither. The words on the front are some sexual entendre, and then you open the card and the rest of the joke is inside. It’s rarely funny, and often stupid.

And while I was pondering that, I got to thinking about how lately beer commercials have really been pissing me off. They are getting stupider and stupider, especially the Coors Light and Miller Lite ones: (the two most moronic have to be the one where the guy can’t say “I love you” to his girlfriend, and the one (above) where the girl asks him what he’d save if they were falling off a cliff, her or his Miller Lite).

It offends me that this is how greeting card companies and beer marketers see men: That we’re all these drooling, idiotic, mono-syllabic morons. Are there no men out there who like greeting cards or beer? We’re all just so stupid we’d pick a case of cheap beer over our hot girlfriend?

It’s pathetic that in 2010 they think that all men are alike, and we’re this dumb. As an intelligent male, I would love to know what guy is watching those commercials and saying “Yeah, that’s me. I should drink that beer and be like that guy.”

OK, end of rant. I’m just sayin’ aren’t there any creative minds left in advertising for these companies?

Which do you think are more offensive, the greeting cards, or the beer commercials?

**The French Open tennis tournament starts today, and I am very happy.

I think it’s weird how in the last couple of years a few of the Grand Slams have decided to start on a Sunday, to stretch the tournament out through three weekends and make some more money off fans by having one extra day of play. But whatever.

This should be a fascinating two weeks for tennis nuts like myself. You have to figure Rafael Nadal, all healthy and fired up (though still not back in the clam-digger shorts, which I think he ought to be wearing), will regain his crown as men’s champ. Can my man Roger Federer find a way to beat Rafa on clay, in a Grand Slam, which he’s never done? I’m as big a Fed fan as there is, but I’m not sure he can do it this year.

On the women’s side, Serena Williams has hardly played since winning the Australian Open in January. And she never plays well at Roland Garros. So of course she’ll probably win the tournament. Justine Henin, who I met once and was very nice, is back from retirement and could also win. Really, it’s pretty wide open on the women’s side.

By the way, that picture above is me standing on the actual center court at the French Open, Court Phillippe Chartrier. I’ll tell the story of my criminal mischief in sneaking into the stadium sometime later this week; let’s just say security there wasn’t exactly like it is at Leavenworth.

It takes a lot to get me up early on a Saturday morning. A fire in the apartment, leaf-blowers from the people next door, that kind of thing.

But I was up bright and early (well, by 9, which is bright and early for me on a Saturday) to watch my

DVR’ed Australian Open women’s final, and I was totally captivated.

Serena Williams is just astonishing. I’m not a big fan of her attitude sometimes, and how she refuses to ever give credit to the opposition when she loses. But good Lord, that woman is a hell of a competitor. She’s getting to the point with me now where, like Roger Federer, LeBron James, and Peyton Manning, that I don’t so much watch them as marvel at their brilliance. How can one person be that good for that long, and just make their opponent look so, so, ordinary?

Anyway, Serena won a pretty captivating three-set match over Justine Henin. She was leading, then she couldn’t win a point, and it looked like Henin was going to snatch the title. Then Serena turned it up a notch, and just roared away for the victory. She’s getting up there with the all-time greats in women’s tennis now; that is undeniable.

***So you might remember me writing about one of my new heroes, Lance Allred, a few times. Lance is the 7-foot, deaf, Mormon basketball player who wrote an amazingly honest and wonderful book called “Longshot,” about his experiences and how he finally made the NBA. I wrote about Lance here and here.

I bring him up now because while flipping the channels Saturday night I came across an NBA D-League game (basically, the minor league of pro basketball) and there Lance was, playing for the Idaho Statesmen. Which confused me, because when I met Lance last summer, he swore up and down he was done with the D-League. Well, after a few months in Italy, he came back to the States, apparently changed his mind, and now is kicking butt since he returned to the D-League a few weeks ago.

Check out his blog here; he’s truly one of the most unusual and thought-provoking athletes you’ll ever hear from.